rats near the coop

[missychicky]

I live next to a ton a blackberry bushes that are infested with rats. They are huge and i was wondering if they would do any harm to my girls. I have the food bin off the ground so they can't get to it and i have blocked the holes bit I'm sure they will find other ways in. Should i poison them or are they no harm?

 

[Imp]

Rats can & will go after chickens. You will probably want to take measures to protect your birds. I'll see if I can find a thread about it.

Imp

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=102704

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=109722

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=57525

There are lots of threads about rats in the pred & pest forum. Good luck

and

from Renton

 

[4 Love of Baby Chickens]

Get a cat or two from the animal shelter. I've seen loads of rats and mice in our barn since the cold weather came in.

I got (almost 3 weeks ago) two 7 month kittens and I haven't seen a single rat and alot less mice since I got Callie and Blue.

 

[Stonerowfarm]

We've had a major rat problem this winter. They even went from the main barn to the banty coop and killed two silkies in the space of a week. One dumb rat was unfortunate enough to wander into the girls coop in the barn before it got dark and got his butt handed back to him (good girls!). Based on the amount of blood they did quite a bit of damage before he could squeeze himself back out of the chicken's coop. Personally I don't like using poison because of secondary and unintentional poisonings so we live-trapped them and then DH disposed of them. So far we've caught about 18 or so.

If you can, try going the cat route and see if that helps.

Good Luck.

 

[missychicky]

thanks for the advice but let me get this straight, can a norway rat kill or hurt a full grown chicken?

 

[D'Angelo N Va.]

A full grown Rat will attack them at night and the chicken will be caught off guard, it might kill it...yes. They sometimes go in as a team. Get Rid Of Them A.S.A.P..use traps..if you use poison, they might go in the chic. coop for water and the chicks. attack him and they get the poison in their system..be very careful of that.

 

[gsim]

Put out two or three death buckets and just empty them daily. Other than that, a good cat that you do not feed will do a very good job of hunting them from among the briars, etc.

 

[HmaximS]

Can you elaborate on "death buckets?" lol

We have a small coop and run outside and I noticed a path worn in the dirt from the neighbors bush to our run. I put out a hav-a-heart rap with carrot and caught a giant rat. I am sure there are more, so we know have 2-3 large rat traps and the live trap out.

 

[gsim]

A death bucket is one half to three-fourths filled with water and a 1" dowel rod set across the middle. An old broom handle would make an excellent candidate for that. It is fixed in such a way that it can freely spin on its axis. Peanut butter is put in the middle and the mouse/rat goes out onto the thing to eat and it spins and dumps him into the water to drown. Would need to be a 5 gallon bucket to drown a rat. You build up each side so that the rat can approach from either side and get to the edge of the bucket and let nature take its course.